Ground Zero
by RainKrystal
Summary: Rebuilding several lives after 9/11, America and his States try to recover from the attack. An epilogue to A Timeline, better than its predecessor. Obviously, contains OCs, so consider yourself warned.


**Warning: **Contains OCs, plus a healthy dose of angst  
**Rating: **T for swears.  
**Note(s): **Hey, does anyone remember when I said I would write a prologue/follow up on A Timeline? Well, here it is! This is going to be a series of vaguely connected oneshots, detailing the aftermath of 9/11. I have no promises on how often this will update, though I do promise not to let it die. In other news, looking back at A Timeline I find that I really don't like my old style, though I still like the timeline format. What I dislike is how out of character some of the States are in that fic, since it was the first thing I tried to do with these characters. I might have to rewrite that whole thing, and just plain old scrap it, since I hate how some bits turned out, like just about everything with Kentucky, even though I liked Vermont's parts, heavy handed and erratic as they were. I guess it's the fault of the fact that my first fic with these characters had to be something so ambitious, so it's only natural that now I find that it fell flat in my own mind. Hopefully, this little series will make up for how hideous some parts of its predecessor were. Also; this fic is the first time I'm trying out a new style, let's hope I don't absolutely hate this in the morning.  
**Disclaimer: **I have never nor ever will claim that I owned Hetalia. As much as I wish that were true, it is not. Oh Well, _c'est la vie._

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The tommy gun is an old thing, a relic from her past, something she hasn't used in ages. The cold metal is familiar, something that feels comforting in New Jersey's hands, a fact that would disturb most people. Instead to her the gun speaks of power and safety, a bargaining tool that only the better armed can argue with. Up here in the attic there are all sorts of fragments of her old lives that New Jersey had only half forgotten, gathering dust. An old fedora sits next to the open trunk, in the same place New Jersey put it moments ago before she opened the tommy gun's case. The hat is about the same age as the gun, and carries with it a very similar set of memories and feelings and so does the suit folded up in the trunk beneath where the gun used to be. New Jersey is almost tempted to put the hat and the suit on, but not in a sort of yearning way, but instead motivated by a restless feeling, like a scared child reaching for a security blanket. That her version of a security blanket happens to be her old Mafioso gear is another fact that most people would find disturbing.

She feels twitchy these days, on edge, always glancing over her shoulder. New Jersey's slowly but surely going back to her old Mafioso habits, hence her being up in the farmhouse attic, feeling a little panicky, needing reassurance from a set of inanimate objects. Everything is going wrong in life these days. New York- the Towers, America- fuck. New Jersey doesn't even know where to start with this bullshit, what to do with it all. After she'd -after they all had- recovered from their initial panic, New Jersey had tried–they've all been trying– to collect herself, to calm down a little. They'd all gone about their recoveries in different ways, New York in a hospital, Massachusetts Pennsylvania and so many countless others by getting angry, Delaware by making rounds to all the other States as she tried to stop crying because no amount of tears was going to fix this beyond damned situation.

New Jersey has been living in New York's apartment with Massachusetts while New York recovers. The two of them barely talk, there's nothing to say. They'd tried to speak once or twice in the last few weeks, but nothing much came of it, just so many awkward pauses that they eventually gave up. After enough days of commuting between New York's apartment to St. Vincent's to check up on the guy, who even though he's technically conscious, hasn't been talking since the first plane flew overhead and he panicked. Mostly, New York just lies in his hospital bed, listless except for when a plane flies by, which is often. He doesn't talk these days, either.

Delaware has been on a back and forth route between D.C. and NYC since the attacks, checking in on Virginia and America, then returning North to stop in on New York and failing at not crying and collapsing at New York's side, blubbering and sobbing because her "little brother" is still practically comatose. He doesn't even show outward signs that he knows that Delaware cries on him except that he must be aware of her presence, because he knows whenever a plane flies by, and responds to that, at least.

New Jersey would be mad at New York and feel sad for Delaware if the Garden State could bring herself to feel anything at all these days other than nagging symptoms of being just all around emotionally wrecked. New Jersey had only managed one day of ridiculous blubbering before her common sense took over and realized that crying wasn't going to solve anything. Luckily, she'd managed to have her breakdown before Massachusetts had arrived in the city and while New York was still passed out. The only people to see were Delaware and Pennsylvania, and she knows that the two of them won't say anything to anyone else. The eldest States have always kept secrets for each other.

Walking around New York's city has always made New Jersey feel wrong, like a stranger in a place she most certainly doesn't belong. It makes her feel like everyone there can see right through her and knows exactly which side of the Hudson she's from. But now, that feeling would be a godsend. What has replaced it is even worse, a feeling that the entire city has been turned inside out, people still struggling to go day to day with a gaping hole in the middle of their city and their lives. Still, they do it anyway and New Jersey still finds herself impressed by New York's people, ready to get back on their feet even after everything went to hell in a hand basket. They act like they're mad of rubber and concrete, the shiny kind with bits of old recycled glass in it because god knows that New York's people are like him and would never stand for being compared to ordinary concrete. They bounce back, they're tough, resilient in a way that New Jersey recognizes from her own people, from all of America's people, really.

That fourth plane, the one that injured Pennsylvania, it was meant for the White House, it turns out. They –the Terrorists, capitalized now because they've earned it in the eyes of the Nation and all his people for all the worst reasons– they were trying to kill the President. Possibly the loudest assassination attempt ever made, and easily the most frightening. But they failed. And why? Because of America, because of the spirit of his people, hell, because of one of New Jersey's people, even if she didn't know until later when Massachusetts had arrived from Boston with news. The man's name –her man's name, really– was Todd Beamer. New Jersey went to talk to his wife, to see his child, to see the shattered remains of a family whose father had died a hero. A wife, holding her head high, practicing that same sort of resilience that seems so characteristic of people these days, a wife wishing that her husband was still alive, hero or not, another thing New Jersey has been encountering a lot lately.

After the sad phase of her responses to the attack had worn off, New Jersey had gotten angry. She didn't even have the decency to move through a proper cycle of grieving. She knows that Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have both been wishing that they were the ones hit instead of New York, and only Mass really likes him that much at all between the two of them, and Penn actually _was_ hit by that fourth plane, Beamer's plane. But not New Jersey. She couldn't even bring herself to bargain, to ask that instead it had been her, not New York who would become debilitated due to injuries to the fabric of her heart because in the deep, despicable part of her that everyone knew always told her was there with a sneer and disgusted look, New Jersey is glad that it wasn't her. And she hates herself for it, for how much of a coward she is.

Terrorists, the name says it all. They wanted to spread fear across America, his family, his people? Well they accomplished that, no doubt about it. But what they didn't seem to count on was the overwhelming, quiet anger they'd find themselves facing. It's the sort of anger that Japan first triggered, a capability of America and his family that no one knew was in them, except for maybe Pennsylvania, whose own use of that anger has always been the Quaker's personal demon. But New Jersey, coward she is, she's been walking through New York's streets, glancing over her shoulder in coffee shops, soaking in the somber, angry, hopeless feel of a city trying its hardest to recover something that seems it will always carry a scar from. Bulletins are everywhere, posted on churches and in storefront windows asking "have you seen this man/woman/child?" because the normal phone lines gave out within hours of the attack. Too many people trying to call resulted in none of the calls going through. Even the States' private communications line was overwhelmed after some time, and they found themselves resorting to word of mouth information now, which is why Delaware has been making her long commute every other day to check on her family, doing what she can which is next to nothing.

New Jersey is paranoid now, imagining that someone follows her everywhere, imagining that she's next to be attacked, that someone's trailing her better than her senses sharpened by decades of crimes can accurately detect. She's become overcritical and silent, unable to bring herself to say anything because New Jersey knows it would be some cowardly, disgusting angry remark that she wouldn't mean and she knows she would only regret later. Tired of the pressing, ever-present silence and the torture that followed her needlessly guilty conscious, New Jersey had finally just left a note in New York's kitchen, and gotten in her car, ready to drive, just drive to any and no destination at all. The Garden State had eventually ended up in her northern half, driving to her personal estate out in what she lovingly refers to as her "mountain country" even though New Jersey has no mountains, only large hills.

The "Garden" as New Jersey so misleadingly calls it, is more of a small farm than a garden, and it has been her hideaway for over at the least one hundred years now. It's where New Jersey retreats to under pressure, her safe haven. Normally, when she's truly stressed, she retreats from Atlantic City to the Garden, and that's what New Jersey has done today, without even knowing she was headed there. And now she stands in her attic, the old tommy gun in her hands, wiping the dust off the old relic, her hands in their old familiar positions, hoping to find safety from just holding the gun. She has new equipment for her job as head of the American Mafia, she has kept pace with the changing times, but these old pieces of New Jersey's past still have value, meaning.

Holding the gun with only one hand, New Jersey shakes off the fedora, blows the dust off the hat and places it on her head, the comfortable article sitting on her head, making her feel taller just to wear it. The hat was built for glaring and for threats, it makes her feel powerful, strong, like she can stare death in the face and know that she'll be fine. Or at least, that's what she normally feels whenever New Jersey is compelled to head into the Garden's attic and hunt for the old relics. But this might be the first time she's come for the remnants of the Prohibition Era out a lack of feeling.

Picking up the gun, the hat resting on her head, New Jersey takes the suit carefully out of its place in the bottom of the trunk and carries it downstairs, wanting to put it one. The relics are so unsuited to the small farmhouse, out of place in the area that despite it now being fall is still beautiful with changing leaves and bright surroundings. The farmhouse is lit only by the afternoon sun, falling in through the windows as New Jersey heads to her bedroom to change. Once the suit is on, she stands in front of the standing mirror and carefully puts on her hat. Then New Jersey picks up the tommy gun, the cold metal comfortable and cool in her hands. Tentatively, she tries to grin, and the old smirk rises on her face.

But she feels nothing, still. After a minute or so with a fake grin on her face, the expression falls off completely, and New Jersey gets a real look at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are ringed with dark spots, showing plainly her lack of sleep, and the in these clothes that reek of danger and expertise, she looks like a small girl, trying on her father's clothes. Even the mirror shows the coward and the liar. Instead of the feelings of power and safety New Jersey normally finds in this outfit is gone, or else she's simply forgotten how to feel strong, how to feel in control of her own destiny. Maybe those things have now been replaced by the constant feeling of nothingness that's been following the Garden State around like a black cloud in the aftermath of the attacks. It's only been a little over a week since one of her only friends was attacked and gravely injured, reduced to a silent almost husk of a person that lies in the hospital bed and responds only to the sounds of planes flying overhead, and then with terror.

Standing there in her old gear, her old past, for a moment, New Jersey sees in the mirror a reflection of what she once was, looking back at her proud and spiteful in her old regalia. For just a moment, and then the specter is gone, leaving only a defeated and hollow State alone in the room of what used to be a safe haven.


End file.
